Need shopping vs stockpiling ( not sure if this is a spin off or not??)

[CerridwenLorelei]

After looking at some of the site for the grocery game listed below
is it more frugal to stockpile than need shopping?

Or is it 50/50?

I don't have a lot of room to store stuff but did a stockpile recently
but on some things if it is more *need* then I am better off because I don't spend that $$ until absolutely necessary

[mraven721]

I wish I could get into stockpiling. But like you I don't have a lot of storage space. Plus if I spend $X on this then that less I have for other essentials. I understand the idea is that next time I won't need to buy thing X, then I'll have more money to stockpile on another item, but I just can't get into it.

[queen bee]

(I hate the word stockpiling. Sounds fearful and miserly.)

But yes, I've gotten into the habit of primarily shopping to stock the kitchen/pantry rather than shopping for individual meals. It seriously cuts down on trips to the store which in turn cuts down on impulse buying. It makes sense to buy things you know you are going to need when they are cheapest, rather than waiting to buy them at the time you need them.

In my house there is never nothing to eat.

I always have:
beans
grains (for cereal or grinding whole wheat flour)
lentils
onions
flour
spices
sugar
salt
canned milk (for baking back-up)
bread
pasta
variety of canned sauces
frozen/canned veggies
frozen/canned fruit
frozen juice

Some of those things I buy in enormous quantities - like multiple cases of canned goods when the price is right, or beans in 50 lb bags (then transferred to airtight buckets.) I use a price book (thank you Amy Dacyczyn) and that makes such a difference.

[queen bee]

I should add - it would be hard to do without much space.

[root*children]

Stockpiling sounds like some crazy old military guy getting ready for armedgedon or something :LOL
We buy in bulk when on sale, too. Our food supply sounds much like queen bee's, but longer (although I'm SURE she didn't liste *everything* she's got in her storage!
I know what you're saying about storage, but it can be done. Amy D. (TWG) makes some good points about storage, like finding every single possible spot for it. All your food doesn't have to be in one place. Like somethings can be under the bed, etc.

We live in a single-wide trailer, so storage space is hard to come by. We have a small extra room that is for sewing, ebaying (so holds many boxes & shipping supplies & inventory), clothes hanging in the winter months (8 mos out of the year here ), and houses the chest freezer and the food pantry. DH made the food shelves custom. So they almost reach the ceiling and are quite deep. We have some bulk foods stored in the kitchen (smaller things like spices, some canned foods, etc.) and usually on top, hard-to-reach shelves (like that blasted one over the fridge!). We also have food under my bed (also custom built by DH to be obnoxiously tall - he saw it as great for more storage - I was like HOW are the kids going to get up there??!!?? :LOL) Under the bed I have 50 lb. bag of soybeans (we used to have actual aseptic boxes of soymilk, now I just make my own), 25 lb. bag of oats, etc.

baby's awake... gotta go!

basically, it can be done! AT least to a small degree of what your storage will allow!

[queen bee]

Dready mama brings up a good point about creative storage. I keep food for immediate use in my kitchen, mid-term storage in a closet in a utility room off the kitchen, and deep storage in the basement. A few of my local grocery stores do case lot sales a few times a year, and thats when I buy most of my canned goods. Those purchases go into the basement (after I mark the date on the cases) and I move whats in the basement into the utility room, displacing those items to the kitchen. It's actually not as complicated as I probably made it sound. By rotating your stock, you make sure nothing is forgotten and nothing goes bad. Before we bought a house, I was known to store things under the bed like oh,...a few buckets of wheat and oat groats.

[root*children]

Another way to look at this is with kids' clothes. It seems much smarter to buy the nice clothes in big sizes for 25 cents at yardsales, than it does to wait until it's winter and your child doesn't have any winter clothes and you have to buy retail and pay full price (or maybe slightly discounted - but probably not anywhere near a quarter).
Buying in bulk, when on sale can be applied to many areas of a frugal life

[rgarlough]

For us, it only pays off to buy in bulk or at least buy 'more' of what's super cheap/on sale if I can remember to meal plan. I used to be really good at planning our menus based on what was in the pantry but I've slacked off a lot... Now I have oodles of spag sauce but no desire to have pasta... Same with rice... So we just keep buying and buying... I think we got out of the meal planning habit because we got so tired of the same meals over and over.

[its_our_family]

We do both. I bulk buy some items and stock up when others are on sale. Then I meal plan and buy what I need. It is nice to buy rice in bulk and know all I have to do is by veggies for stirfry. Or to know I have enough flour in the pantry that whenever I need to use it to make homemade pizza that I have canned tomatoes in the pantry (bulked up on) and I can.

It makes it easy.

Last month the local grocery store had their brand of canned veggies for .10 a can instead of 48. Boy did I ever stock up! Even if they had a limit I would go the next day and buy the limit just to get what I needed. I didn't buy canned goods for months!

[Proudmomoftwinsplusone]

I stockpile things that I know we will end up using- pasta, cereal, canned goods.

[its_our_family]

I was going to say that stocking up can be helpful on really tight money weeks. I can sometimes go an entire week and not have to buy anything for food. That is always nice

[Belleweather]

So, I have a stockpiling question, then.

Do you stockpilers shop different places for the foods that you buy a LOT of, rather than the conventional grocery store?

I've been thinking about this, because there are some 'staples' that are like the back bone of our diet -- Olive Oil, brown rice, canned diced tomatoes, garbanzo beans, black beans, lentils, sesame oil, bulghar wheat, couscous, soy sauce, miso, etc. And most of those foods are the kinds of things that are mighty expensive at normal stores, even in bulk, but are a lot cheaper at the 'ethnic' grocery, (ie. big bottles of olive oil are ~$12 at the grocery store, but a tin twice the size and better quallity is ~$10 at the mediterranean grocery), or the resturant supply store.

I'm trying to convince DH that the best thing to do would be to drive into the bigger city and purchase mass quantities of all the bulk supplies that we need at the appropriate ethnic/bulk grocery store, and then store them around the house in airtight containers. I was wondering if anyone else had experience with this?

[magster]

Originally Posted by Proudmomoftwins

I stockpile things that I know we will end up using- pasta, cereal, canned goods.

Same thing here. Plus we always have tons of TP. I live in fear of running out at a critical moment! :LOL

[EmsMom]

I stock up on everything. I have stuff stashed in my (very small) kitchen and in the basement. As far as getting bored with what you have stocked up on, it really helps if you only stockpile the most versitile items. For example, rather than stocking lots of jars of spaghetti sauce, I stock cans of diced tomatoes and tomato paste by the case when they are on sale. I use them to make my own sauce, or soup or as a base for a rice dish. I stock flours that I use to make bread, muffins, cookies, and biscuits. I also my some herbs and spices in bulk. I buy cat food in large quantities when it is on sale. Same for toilet paper. These items I NEVER buy at full price. Also, it is a learned skill to eat out of your pantry. Look at what you have on hand and then decide what to cook, rather than deciding what you want first. It also helps to learn what foods can be substituted for others and what can be left out. For example, most recipes that use vegetables can easily made with nearly any vegetable. Or if a recipe calls for celery and you are out, maybe a handful of dried parsley would add some flavor. Or some celery seed might add enough of the flavor. I also stockpile children's clothes at yard sales. I rarely pay more than .50 for any item. I have them sorted by size and season in boxes. When the weather changes or my kids pants are suddenly too short, I just pull out the right box and avoid a trip to the store and a big outlay of $$$. I typically overbuy a bit because there are always a couple of things in the box that are not comfortable or don't fit quite right... I have really come to rely on this type of shopping to same TIME as well as $$$$. It also really saves my sanity! Hope I was not too long-winded here!

[rgarlough]

I do this too!

I also stockpile children's clothes at yard sales. I rarely pay more than .50 for any item. I have them sorted by size and season in boxes. When the weather changes or my kids pants are suddenly too short, I just pull out the right box and avoid a trip to the store and a big outlay of $$$. I typically overbuy a bit because there are always a couple of things in the box that are not comfortable or don't fit quite right...

The only thing that sort of gets me on the clothes thing is that our kids hardly ever wear them out before they outgrow them! Thank goodness I can just pass them on for a 3rd time! And I don't have to feel bad about the ones that NEVER get worn because I hardly spent a thing on the clothes!

[sagewinna]

I stockpile.... One of the ways it saves me $$ is by keeping me out of the store! I can never run in for just one thing, I end up getting other things we are low on, so the less i am there the better off I am!

I keep some stuff inthe garage, some in a pantry in the house and some in the kitchen. I have big food safe, airtight bucket to keep the 25 lbs of flours, oats, beans, lentils, brown rice, etc. I buy them through a natural food coop run by one of my friends, I can get a 25 lb bag of oats for about $10 bucks! There are also some cash and carry places in town, 10 lb boxes of pasta for $7, and not so much packaging...

[CerridwenLorelei]

when you say oats is this like the same you

make oatmeal from??

[root*children]

[mnnice]

OT--Dready--You so remind me of my good friend in graduate school. She was a SAHM and her husband was a grad student (they had two little girls). They also managed some of the student housing. These places were tiny (I'm sure about the same size as a singlewide trailer). She had boxes of cereal and other staple foods under her bed and between the ceiling and these insulated water pipes each unit had.

Another thing I loved about her is that she never seemed to let herself feel broke (although I am sure they were fairly broke). While I'm personallly glad I had children after buying a home and having some $ resources to work with I think it pays to remember that prosperity often exists inside our brains. Okay so much for my attempt at being philophical this a.m.

[sarah_bella1050]

CerridwenLorelei- I use oats for alot more then oatmeal, it can be a major food staple. I make my own granola which is super easy so I never have to buy cereals. I make super healthy cookis, meatloaf and alot of other things.

I've really started to cook alot more from scratch and if you do that buying bulk is essential! 2-3 months ago I bought a 25 pound bag of whole wheat four and that is half way gone. I also bought a gallon of honey and that is down to a quarter full! These sorts of things I use in daily life and I can't imagine how much I would be paying if I was buying a weeks worth at a time. We eat all organic and natural foods and since we don't have very much money I knew that I need to make a change. Now that I cook from scratch and buy in bulk I able to spend only $200 a month. We do go shopping every eek or two for fruits and veggies mostly to the farmer's market though, they're year around here, and we freeze surplus when in season. I really want to get into canning, that would save a lot.

Speaking of buying in bulk, I have a great website for anyone who lives on the west coast, it's azurestandard.com. It's in Oregon and they have a truck route that will delivers with no extra cost and also there's no sales tax.